More clues to Israel's nuclear weapons status

The 1979 Vela incident in the South Atlantic which Professor Norman Dombey refers to in his letter (13 August) is in fact not the only suspected Israeli nuclear test. There is some evidence that possibly indicates that Israel's first nuclear test took place on 2 November 1966. This suspected test, if it happened, was a zero or near-zero yield test carried out at Dimona site and intended to validate Israel's nuclear design.

The evidence is sparse, but very intriguing. Monya Mardur, the head of the Israeli armament agency Rafael, who was in charge of nuclear development, wrote in his memoir the following passage: "On November 2 1966, a test with a special significance was conducted. It meant an end of an era of development, and a step that brought one of our primary weapons systems to its final phases of development and production in Rafael. The test was completely successful, for we received an unequivocal experimental proof of the adequacy of the system that was developed at Rafael, we have waited for that result for many years."

The CIA, which also got news of the test, estimated in a report of 17 February 1967 that "regardless of what was actually tested ... Israel continued to produce bomb components" and that "assembly could be completed in 6-8 weeks".

More corroboration appears in a story published on 27 February 1967 in the Lebanese newspaper Al Hayat, which reported that in the fall of 1966, Israel had carried out a small-scale nuclear test. The information about the 1966 alleged test and the change in Israel's nuclear status became accepted as the date Israel became nuclear. A British document from 1979 states that: "Successive Israeli governments since 1966 have said that Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East ... We believe the Israelis could quickly assemble about a dozen low-yield weapons without testing for a delivery."

Interestingly, this assumed test could potentially play an important role one day in Israel's non-proliferation treaty politics. The NPT, which Israel is not a member of, defines a nuclear weapon state as a state that tested a nuclear device before 1 January 1967, but does not define a minimum limit for the test. Theoretically, if Israel decides one day to abandon its nuclear opacity policy, it could demand to join the NPT as a nuclear weapon state by proving it tested on 2 November 1966.